


History

by Morveren



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Experimental Style, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Non-Linear Narrative, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 17:58:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14878574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morveren/pseuds/Morveren
Summary: As you lay dying in an unnamed street in Dorado, you recall your entire history with Jack Morrison.





	History

 

You are thirty-three and you are dying, blood dripping between your clenched fingers, lungs aching and heavy with the dust of a collapsed building.

Snow falls around you, melts against your flushed skin, so cold that it feels like heat.

A word bubbles to your lips, a single word, and you barely manage to spit it out, blood dribbling down your mouth as you speak.

The word is a name.

Amidst a ruined building in Switzerland, you scream, “ _Jack.”_

*********

You are twenty-five and this is the first time you’ve seen him, Strike-Commander Morrison in the flesh. He is blonde and blue-eyed and golden, the light around him looking almost like a halo.  

On his chest, multiple medals gleamed. His smile is radiant.

You drop your eyes when he glances at you, eyes tracing the pattern of tiles on the floor.

He laughs when you call him _sir_ and he tells you not to be so formal.

You think that he is the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen.

********

You are laughing and Jack is pressing a finger to your lips to muffle the sound. His hair is magnificently tussled and his face is covered in lipstick, smudged on his lips where you had already kissed him several times.

You can hear the soft murmur of people talking; someone with a loud voice is asking where Jack is. Somewhere, you can hear Lena laughing.

“I think they’re looking for you,” you whisper. Guilt and pleasure and adrenaline are singing through your veins; you are already half-drunk, drugged by his presence.

Jack is laughing too, his entire body shaking, his smile pressed against the skin of your neck.

When he turns his head, you can feel his lips touch your ear.

He whispers, “Let them.”

  
*********

You are thirty-three again and you are digging through rubble with your bare hands and you are bleeding. Fingernails rip and tear as you dig through earth, your throat is raw from screaming.

Strong arms wrap around you lifting you up, away from the dirt, away from _Jack_ and before you knew it, you were spinning around, one hand curled into a tight fist.

You punch Reindhart before you recognize him.

He is crying, you realize, crying so hard that his massive shoulders shake with the force of it.

“I am sorry, mäuschen,” he says. “I am so sorry.”

A few of his tears fall on your face where it burns like acid.

You hate him.

********

You are thirty-nine and you are dying again.

This time, you can’t really force yourself to care.

********

Jack is kneeling in front of you, your heart beating so wildly you are afraid that it would burst.

He is smiling, the happiest you had ever seen him. He is holding a velvet box in his hands and the ring inside it shines so bright that it hurts to look at.

You can hear Reinhardt crying.

Lena is yelling something, trying to throw something at your head. Ana, in the background, trying to get her to settle down.

Someone is screaming at you to answer.

Your eyes burn with unshed tears and you kneel in front of Jack, holding him so close that he nearly topples over.

Amidst the noise of your friends yelling their congratulations, amidst the confetti that someone is throwing, you lean into Jack to make sure that only he can hear. A shiver runs through him when your lips touch the shell of his ear.

You say yes.

*********

You cannot remember how old you are; all the days and weeks and months have melted together.

Jack’s shirts have stopped smelling like him.

You wish that you’d died in Switzerland.

*********

You are staring at your PDA and you think that you are dreaming.

Someone has sent the signal again.

Overwatch, alive again, after all these years.

Jack’s ring burns against your finger and you answer the call, not because it is the right thing to do, but because maybe, just maybe, you will find something else of your husband other than his ghost.

*********

You are thirty-nine and you are dying and Winston’s voice is loud in your ears.

His voice is calm, measured. He is asking for your location, asking for an assessment of the damage.

You can’t feel your fingers anymore, but when you look down, you can still see Jack’s ring. The gold band is streaked with your blood. You can feel your heart beating wildly against your chest.

Winston is talking about sending someone to your position and you think of how Angela had all but shut down when she saw all the bodies of the dead agents.

You think about the flag that they had given you instead of a body.

You are in an unnamed street in Dorado and it would be the easiest thing in the world to send Winston your coordinates.  

You turn off the comms.

*********

You are twenty-seven, young and hopelessly in love with Jack Morrison.

The other members make their jokes, they pull faces whenever the two of you are in the same room.

Others, like Angela, stop you in the hallway to congratulate you.

You are twenty-seven and young and hopelessly in love and you think that this will last forever.

When Jack smiles at you, it feels like you are flying.

*********

You are thirty-nine years old and you should be dying, but someone is pulling you up by your arm and he is keeping you alive.

Darkness blooms at the edge of your vision and it is all you can do to keep Jack’s ring in your sight.

When the stranger wraps his hand around yours, obscuring the ring on your finger, you cry.

It’s the first time you’ve cried in years.

*********

You are twenty-nine and exactly ten years from now, you will lie dying in a street in Dorado.

But you don’t know this, don’t care about anything past the curve of Jack’s ear and the spray of freckles on his shoulders.

You had just finished making love on a bed so new that the price tag is still on the frame. You count his freckles underneath your breath, ignoring his soft laughter. His hand is warm on your hip, his sweat cooling on your skin.

You are twenty-nine and you aren’t thinking of death or betrayal or Overwatch. Instead, you are thinking of the new house and boxes that you have yet to unpack and maybe, just maybe, you are thinking of a pair of shoes so small that they could fit in the palm of your hand.

*********

You are thirty-nine years old and you are staring at a device so familiar it nearly breaks you in half.

You think of fusion cannons and pulse pistols and all the standard-issue gear that soldiers have been equipped with throughout the Omnic Crisis.

In between all of those weapons meant to hurt and tear and kill, you think of biotic emitters and how Jack always carried them with him.

You think about how they hadn’t helped him in Switzerland.

You think about how you are too old for hope.

But when the door to the hideout opens and the soldier walks in, you could feel your heart beating in your chest, and you are twenty-five again and you are seeing Strike-Commander Morrison for the first time.

He is half-turned away from you and his eyes do not quite meet yours, but you are staring at him with a hunger you have not felt in years.

He is older, wearier. There are three scars across his face, ugly because you can’t help but think of how much they must have hurt him.

There is an ache in your chest that has nothing to do with bullet wounds.

You think of the flag they had given you instead of a body, the nights that you had spent alone in a house that was suddenly too big for just one person. You think of a loneliness so vast and empty that it sometimes felt like you were drowning.

You turn away from him, too, facing the wall instead of the man who has left you to deal with all the years alone.

The ring on your finger burns.

He sighs, a soft, muted sound.

When he touches the back of your neck, you could feel _his_ ring, cool where his flesh was warm.

He says, “I’m sorry.”

Two words and the weight of an entire universe behind them.

Maybe tomorrow, you will be angry at him, demand the answers that you deserve. Maybe tomorrow, you will wake at the crack of dawn and rise while he is still sleeping.

Maybe tomorrow, you’ll leave him instead of the other way around.

But you aren’t thinking of that. You aren’t thinking of vengeance or answers or righting all the wrongs he has done.

You are thinking of Winston and how, maybe tomorrow, he will send an extraction team for the two of you and in the safety of Overwatch’s underground base, you and Jack can crack open a bottle of wine and talk

Just talk.

Surely the two of you aren’t so broken that you couldn’t do that.

At least, you hope not.

You are thirty-nine years old.

And maybe you are not too old to start again.


End file.
